It appears the Americans and the Brits are sharing more than David Beckham these days as government contractors from both sides of the pond are joining forces. We met INDUS CEO Shiv Krishnan and his new Vice Chairman Carleton Jones yesterday at their Vienna office and the two tell us they just returned from a five-day trip to London to explore partnerships with British companies, a journey that gained import following two recent high profile sales: BAE Systems buying Detica for $1.1 billion and QinetiQ North America, the U.S. arm of the British IT giant, purchasing Reston’s Dominion Technology Resources.

Both Shiv and Carleton, the former CEO of Multimax who left the company following its sale to Harris Corporation last year, tell us they read their Tech Bisnows while in London. (Guys, flattery will get you everywhere.) Shiv says American and British contractors share similar defense concerns, especially with fighting terrorism. “With the political alliance and the fact many of their procurement rules are the same or similar to ours, it makes sense for companies to try to sell in both markets,” says Shiv, who explicitly says that INDUS, the area’s 15th largest IT employer, may be looking to purchase a British company.

We wish we could report the two had a little fun in London, but despite almost perfect weather “it was all cab rides and office buildings – only some of which were air conditioned,” says Carleton, who joined INDUS in May. You can see the Tower Club from Shiv’s immaculate corner office, but we’re guessing the views on his recent family trip to Hawaii were even nicer.

Online Shopping Security

The screen behind buySAFE.com CEO Jeff Grass and founder Steve Woda shows the roughly 80 transactions per minute where people use the Arlington-based company’s online purchase assurance. We met the two yesterday and they tell us the five-year-old company recently launched in beta a new product called Shopping Advisor, a free browser plug-in that leverages buySAFE’s advanced risk management technology to provide risk-free Internet shopping. The application provides safe shopping ratings on more than 320,000 online merchants and fully guarantees (and protects from ID theft) consumer purchases from over 3,500 online stores. “Online shoppers are worried about two things: will they get what they paidfor and will their personal information be protected,” Steve says. The company addresses both concerns by first checking merchants on four criteria, then bonding the transactions up to $25,000.

Steve and Jeff met as students at Wharton Business School where Steve initially came up with the idea for buySAFE. “I bought a PDA off eBay, but it never showed up,” says Steve, who figured small online transactions could be bonded like, say, a $40 million construction contract. Jeff went to California and founded his own company, PayMyBills.com, one of the first online bill paying services that he eventually sold for $67 million and after some time travelling the globe joined up with Steve on buySAFE.com. The business, which got funding from Core Capital Partners and Grotech Ventures, has now insured more than 17 million online transactions, but that is nothing compared to the deals in the office fantasy football league: “It gets pretty nasty,” Steve says.

Daon’s Mission Possible

One thing we love about covering technology is hearing about the cutting-edge Mission Impossible-type technology like our friends at Reston-based Daon (pronounced day-on). We met CEO Tom Grissen earlier this week and he tells us the 120-person company makes software that creates identity assurance systems of biometricdata (you know: finger prints, retina scans, vein patterns) to ensure a person’s identity. “We create an identity system of the things that make each of us who we are that no one can change, guaranteeing a person’s identity.” The software is used worldwide in airports, international borders and anywhere a person’s identity needs to be verified. TSA uses Daon for its TWIC (Transportation Worker Identification Credential) program at all US seaports to keep track of more than 400,000 employees. Daon also powers national border and immigration programs spanning the globe from Japan and Australia to the UK and European Union (EU).

The ATM-looking machine next to Tom is used to scan identification cards used by international travelers in countries like Qatar. Tom came to Daon after working as Prez at MAXIMUS. Daon saw 100 percent growth in revenue last year, we’re guessing in part due to Tom’s management training exercises: He took a group of company leaders to climb a glacier in Switzerland. The Michigan-native and father of two enjoys pushing himself outside of the office: he runs marathons and this week took part in a sailboat race in Annapolis where he was the self-described “wench monkey.”

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